I just published my first short story, The Day That Angels Came, and I was wondering how I could get it on the kindle singles list. It a true story of a six year old girls brush with death. It is only five pages and very easy reading so I think it may do better as a singles. I have never published anything so any advice would be wonderful! Does my title suck? Is my description enough? How do I get people to read it? Should I offer it for free? Thank you all so much!!!!

I like your title. It's catchy, and seems to give off an idea of the feel of the story.

You should change your cover. The picture is lovely, but you should crop it to be the basic shape of a book cover (and remove the yellow date at the bottom), add the title and your (the author's) name. I've purchased a couple of books with covers similar to yours (where it's just a photograph) and it's confusing when it's on my Kindle (I have a fire) because I have no idea what it is without having to open it up. It will look more professional and people will be more likely to purchase it.

With your blurb, you might want to tweak it just a little. Maybe something like:

[i]The incredible true story of a six-year-old girl's terrifying brush with death and the miraculous rescue to save her.

A short story of approximately X,XXX words.[/i]

You might even want to put what caused the brush with death (car accident, kidnapping, whatever it may be) to entice your reader's appetite a little more. There's a couple of typos there now (such as "girls" should be "girl's" because it's possessive), so making it a little stronger will give your readers confidence that they're getting a good product.

After you make those changes (if you do decide to) then post the link along with a sentence of two about what it is around FaceBook, Twitter, on your blog if you have one, and email it out to friends and relatives. (Maybe something like "Hello everyone, I just wanted to share this short story I wrote with you. It's a true story of life and death!")

You worked hard on it, so there's no reason you have to give it away. Pricing a short story at $0.99 or $1 is very reasonable- people pay more than twice that for a soda at a restaurant, and four times that amount for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Have you enrolled it in KDP Select? You can do five free promo days, which will help it gain a bit of momentum and more exposure. I've found that doing two or three days in a row works well; it gets the momentum without being overkill. But KDP Select allows you to break up those free days any way you please in a 90-day period.

Other than that, I would just make sure it's been proofread and edited and is the best it can be.

I wish I could tell you how to get it in the Kindle Singles, but I have never ventured into that area.

You have to be accepted into shorts. On one of the many ebook pages, I can't remember which, there is a link to email your book link to kdp/amazon who will then review it and let you know if they want to include it in the shorts section.

I can't find the link right now, but I originally found it doing a google search.

I bought it and read it, and found some things that you may want to fix (I mean this in a helpful way):

[i]Your first paragraph is centered, and it looks a little strange. I had this problem, too- when I would center the title, the first paragraph would also become centered. If you're working in Word, put the cursor underneath the title and click "Insert" and then select "Page Break." Then highlight the first paragraph and put it to the normal indentation. That worked for me, so I hope it'll work for you.

Your dialogue is well written, but each new speaker should be the start of a new paragraph. For example, here you have:[/i]

He bounced up and down, hurrying me along. "Are you ready yet?" James complained. "Almost, jeez, do you have ants in your pants?" I answered. I was six, and...

[i]But it would look better (and flow a little easier in the reader's eye) if it looked like this:[/i]

He bounced up and down, hurrying me along.
"Are you ready yet?" James complained.
"Almost, jeez, do you have ants in your pants?" I answered.
I was six, and...

[i]On the next page: [/i]
Strong and sturdy the stick felt good in my hands. "Hey, I want one," James wined. "Of course you do, well hurry up already," I answered.

Strong and sturdy[b],[/b] the stick felt good in my hands.
"Hey, I want one," James [b]whined.[/b]
"Of course you do[b]. Well,[/b] hurry up already," I answered.